In recent times, various industrial accidents that have occurred around the world resulted in adverse impacts on the environment and loss of life. In response to a number of chemical accidents that resulted in deaths and injuries, environmental damage, and extensive economic impacts in the surrounding communities, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) suggested a series of measures to help governments and communities through the Awareness and Preparedness for Emergencies at Local Level (APELL) program. APELL has been developed particularly in developing countries to minimize the occurrence and harmful effects of technological hazards and environmental emergencies. These impacts can often be reduced if the immediate local level response is effective.
What is APELL?
APELL is a program designed to identify and create awareness of hazards and risks, to initiate measures for risk reduction, accident prevention and mitigation, and to develop coordinated preparedness among the local industry, authorities and community.
Every country and its community face a variety of hazards and disaster risks that may result in environmental emergency situations. The potential impacts from these accidents and disasters may vary significantly depending upon the characteristics of the community and its approachability to manage the emergency preparedness and emergency response.
Risk reduction for the potential hazards may include:
- Technological hazards, resulting from industrial operations and activities, mining or the transport of hazardous substances that leads to the accidents involving fire, explosion, toxic gas releases and environmental contamination.
- Natural hazards and disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, cyclones, floods, landslides, or other disasters, including the catastrophic events resulting from natural processes like atmospheric, geological and hydrological origin that can cause fatalities, property damage and social environmental disruption.
Certain examples of situations/accidents where the APELL program would be an effective tool to the community and industrial facilities:
- Industrial Accidents: In spite of the efforts taken by the in
- dustries on process safety including increased regulatory programmes, accidents still happen. As a result, every community where hazardous materials are located or community close to the hazardous facilities faces some residual risk. It is therefore essential for communities to be aware of the risks and impacts of such accidents and to develop preparedness and contingency plans.
- Transportation Accidents: Hazardous materials are routinely moved and transported through all modes of transportation of hazardous materials, including highways, railroads, waterways and pipelines. As a result, awareness and preparedness in these communities shall be raised as it is often lacking at the community level, though they experience such accidents that occur from these dangerous or hazardous goods.
The objectives of APELL are:
- Identifying and creating awareness of hazards and risks.
- Initiating the measures for risk reduction, accident prevention and risk mitigation.
- Developing preparedness among the local industry, authorities and community
Five phases of APELL: APELL is conducted in five phases of activity.
1. The first phase provides the guidance and advice on involving the right participants and organizations and getting their commitment to emergency preparedness.
2. The second phase is focused on understanding and improving awareness of hazards and risks in the community.
3. The third phase examines plans and capabilities, and monitors the community’s efforts to improve local disaster preparedness.
4. The fourth phase involves education, training and other efforts to build local capacity to implement emergency plans.
5. The fifth phase discusses the steps and cycle of continuous improvement. The concepts and tools suggested are flexible, and the procedures or operation should be adapted to specific local conditions and requirements.
At the local level the three important groups who must be involved for APELL to succeed are:
- Government authorities: Government authorities which include province, district, city or town officials, either elected or appointed, who are responsible for safety, public health and environmental protection in their area.
- Industry: Occupiers and managers of fixed industrial establishments or hazardous material transportation facilities, responsible for safety and accident prevention in their operations.
- Local community and interest groups: Local community and interest groups that include groups involved in environmental protection, health care professionals as well as the media, and religious organizations. It also includes leaders in the educational and other business or commercial sectors that represent the concerns and views for community protection.
The role of Local authorities in the APELL Process is:
- Raising public awareness and mobilizing public support in the APELL Process;
- Establishing and developing the APELL Process ;
- Coordinating emergency and other public group participation;
- Training personnel in emergency response by developing requires skills appropriate to the risks present in the community;
- Allocating and mobilizing the needed resources;
- Approving and adopting the emergency preparedness plan developed through the APELL Process, implementing and communicating it to the public;
- Being a catalyst in stimulating the formation of the Coordinating Group;
- Acting as an interface with the national government representatives.
The main goals of the implementation of the APELL Process are:
- Providing information to the concerned members of the community on the hazards involved in industrial operations in and around its surroundings, and the measures taken to reduce these risks.
- Reviewing, updating and initiating emergency response plans in local areas.
- Increasing local industry involvement in community awareness and emergency response planning.
- Integrating industry emergency plans with local emergency response plans into one overall plan for the community to handle any kind of chemical and environmental emergencies.
- Involving members of the local community in the development, testing and implementation of the overall emergency response plan.
Indian Scenario
In India, APELL has been implemented in association with the National Safety Council of India since 1992. A two-track approach was used whereby endorsement efforts with national and local government proceeded simultaneously. The national level focused on raising national awareness, building national commitment, strengthening safety audit and risk assessment, and developing national guidelines. The local government effort focused on the needs identified in the communities.
As an outcome, a new set of rules called "Chemical Accidents (Emergency Planning, Preparedness and Response) Rules", 1996, notified under the Environmental (Protection) Act 1986 came into effect to provide legal backing to the formation of APELL-like coordination groups called Local Crisis Groups (LCGs) in all industrial areas having hazardous installations or units, as well as strengthening their capabilities through industrial safety and disaster preparedness training, equipment and networking. Furthermore, the APELL Process has been recommended in the National Disaster Management Guidelines on Chemical (Industrial) Disasters issued by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) in April 2007.
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